Delete stops working - restart required

[whitebirchstudios]

I must reboot MAX 2025 4-5 times daily because delete stops working. Shortcuts and menus.

[Post title modified 11/27/24 by CGBenner]

[RobH2]

What version of 2025?

[whitebirchstudios]

Yes, I listed the version in the original post. I literally can't work having to reboot MAX over and over. Please don't tell me to delete my ENU folder :).

[RobH2]

I see the version now. Apolgies, I move fast in the forums late at night sometimes and overlook things now and again. 

Ha, yea, OK no ENU. I assume you tried that. The reason I mention it so often is that it really does solve or reset these annoying things that pop up. I reset mine all the time and in fact, anytime something odd occurs, I reset it and more often than not, it fixes interface annoyances. 

Moving on, I don't know what to say except have you installed any 3rd party plugins the past few days? If so, you might try uninstalling them and then checking Max. I've had them wreak havok. They don't get the intense testing and scrutiny that "official" plugins/features get from the Max dev team. My Max 2024 installation is destroyed right now I think due to a 3rd party plugin and no amount of ENU resets or uninstalling will solve it. I'm going to have to completely reinstall 2024, argggg..... Before I install any new plugin, I "always" back up my ENU and name it "ENU_before xxxxx_plugin" so that if things go sideways I can revert. However, it didn't help me this time. 

I'll keep an eye out for others with this issue. I don't have any other suggestions. 

[whitebirchstudios]

I only installed an update to Forest Pro and Railclone, which is still in beta for MAX 2025. I now have mouse issues, so maybe it is a Windows 11 thing. Every click is two clicks, so it is madness.

[RobH2]

It sounds like it may be a Forest Pro and Railclone, give away word, "Beta" issue. If you uninstall the iToo software, does Max behave normally?  

[whitebirchstudios]

I am still having deletion issues. Forest pack pro and Railclone are out of beta, so it isn't that.

[RobH2]

Did you ever try that ENU reset? You don't have to delete it, just rename it and restart Max. Max will build a new one. If things work properly, well, then you know what you have to do. You'll have to rebuild it.

You can do that without losing everyhting. There are a few posts on the forum, including one that's pretty specific that I posted, telling you how to do it and not lose very much. 

If things still aren't working right, then it's not the ENU, so delete the new ENU, restore your original one's name to 'ENU' and you are back to where you were. 

[muratcanyeniarascom]

Hello,

You can reset 3ds Max;

https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/3ds-max-maya-turkce/3ds-max-resetleme-ayarlari-sifirlama/td-p/7989769

Enjoy your work.

[jibijib]

Just check this isn't highlighted:

Download Powertools, and try redefining the delete key to something else to see if it's a problem with max or a mismatch with the keys in max. I'm sure I had this years ago with another key and found it was something simple

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/powertoys/

[whitebirchstudios · Accepted solution]

MAX's recent update fixed it.

[RobH2]

Great, thanks for reporting back. People are always complaining about the Devs not fixing things...they work hard, I know a few of them. One down...!

[whitebirchstudios]

False alarm, still broken. Those dang developers! 😉

[RobH2]

Yea, don’t dang the Devs. I’ve met a number of them and they are passionately dedicated to Max and each team responsible for various functions of Max have to work within a development hierarchy that affects how things get fixed or modified, not unlike most every huge company. Believe me, if they could just read your post and then fix it “this afternoon” they really would like to. What we can do is just realize that they can’t act as independently as an open source or small shop software. They know bugs frustrate us and they do care and work very hard. Give them a bit of slack…. 🙂

[whitebirchstudios]

This is still an issue, and I see it reported elsewhere. It seems to happen right after merging in older scene assets.

[RobH2]

Yea, it is still lingering. I suffer from it as well. Hopefully it will get fixed. I've reported it and I hope other do to. Strength in numbers....

[larryminton]

3ds max has the following class that is used for handling the delete key.

Class EventRouter

This is a generic event notification system. The only two places this is
currently used are for when the Delete key is pressed or the Delete menu
item is selected, and when the Backspace key is pressed.
To use it:
1. Create an EventUser object.
2. Register the EventUser object with the appropriate router.
3. The EventRouter will call the EventUser's Notify() method when
the event occurs.
4. When you're done with the EventUser object, call the EventRouter's
UnRegister() method. This will delete the EventUser from the router's
notification system.
5. If your code is part of a window proc, call the router's Register and
UnRegister methods when the window receives WM_ACTIVATE messages. This will
properly uncouple the notification system when the window is deactivated.

De-gibberished - plugin code needs to register and unregister to handle the delete key. It sounds like something is registering, but not unregistering. The problem then becomes - what plugin is doing that. Is it one of the plugins shipping with 3ds max, or is it a 3rd party plugin? 

First and main question is can you reproduce this using shipping 3ds max without any 3rd party plugins?  Just the presence of a problematic 3rd party plugin, not its actual usage, can be sufficient to cause an issue. When the plugin is loaded at 3ds max startup it can register for certain notifications such as file load, file reset, etc. and problem can be caused by the handling of those notifications.

The register/unregister code is typically called as an object's ui is displayed/undisplayed. It is also possible that when the object's ui is displayed the plugin code registers for notifications, but when undisplayed the code doesn't unregister all notifications, and then later when the notification is sent the plugin code is improperly registering code to handle the delete key.

A way of testing to see if this is actually the issue is once it is happening on your system, select a node, go to Tools / Array, and press the delete key. The Array dialog registers code to handle the delete key, and pressing the delete key should cause the selected node to be deleted.

Unfortunately there is no diagnostics present in 3ds max to help determine when the register / unregister occur.  Are you part of beta?  It would be possible to add some diagnostics code to a beta build that may help narrow down the cause. 

Larry

[RobH2]

@larryminton  This makes a lot of sense. Now we need to experiment to see what 3rd party plugin is breaking things. I expect that is the problem. 

[calberto.cart]

A couple of days ago I received a notification from iToo that newest updates solves "Delete key stop working" issue

Could it be related?

I havent tried uninstalling Forestpack and Railclone from my machine but, its worth tring

[RichardWoolsgrove]

that is really interesting about the itoo plugin. I was narrowing it down to it possibly being the Forest Pack item lister dialog. I can't get it to consistently fail but it seems to happen more when I use this. And not at all when I don't. I'm going to install the latest and see.